


A rose by any other name

by llwydion



Series: reflections (DCMK AUs) [1]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, M/M, POV First Person, in which only one of them remembers his past lives, it's for a specific aesthetic reason, repeat reincarnations, see if you can spot the other universes i've worked in!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 01:12:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14533446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llwydion/pseuds/llwydion
Summary: I chase you across a hundred lifetimes in a thousand universes, millions of possibilities and moments where we meet and part, because I am in love with you.(alternatively, their love story, in a multitude of ways, across a multitude of worlds)





	1. Well met by moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> (i know, i know, i have like five other unfinished works, what am i doing, starting a sixth?  
> i plead that inspiration struck in the shower and this was born)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so, it begins.

When we first meet, you are a detective, and I am a thief. It is a beautiful moonlit evening in Paris, and we are standing on the roof of a small coffee shop I used to frequent when I was a student. I am holding a priceless necklace stolen from a rich count’s house, and you are desperately trying to catch me and return it.

We have a battle of wits, and I manage to narrowly defeat you. Rinse and repeat, until one day, I sit down across a stranger in a pub, and I see a pair of familiar blue eyes.

We have many adventures in that life, you and I. You chase me across rooftops, I leave you roses in your small apartment filled with tobacco smoke. You shimmy up gutters, I write you witty, creative notes that you find in your left sock or on top of your bathroom mirror or once, in your pipe.

They say you are the greatest detective of the century. They say I am the greatest thief. We make a good pair, you and I. You are smart and serious, I am cunning and mischievous.

And somewhere along the way, I start receiving roses in return. I start getting poems scratched out in your chicken scrawl on scraps of paper.

We can’t do anything overt; though this is twentieth-century Paris, we are too well-known for anything like that. Instead, we have secret meetings. You finish a case, I finish a theft, and you come over to my apartment, where we make love for hours.

It all goes terribly, on one fine summer’s day. You are shot (a case which you were unwilling to give up, despite the danger and my pleas), and I am left with a handful of paper scraps, a bunch of withered roses from when you visited a week ago, and the taste of ash in my mouth.

Years later, after Moriarty and his dark web have been dismantled, I find a red stone, and I ask it to bring you back to me.


	2. A thousand words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A thousand words can paint a picture, and so on.

I am a jeweler, well known for my delicate work and beautiful craftsmanship.

You come in and ask for a ring.

“A wedding ring,” you say bashfully. “I’m looking for a beautiful ring for a beautiful woman.” You grin, and you are so bright and happy.

I swallow past the lump in my throat and instead pull out my most beautiful work.

You pay for your purchase, smiling happily while you do so, and leave.

I never see you again.

* * *

I run a small bookstore, tucked away in a corner of the city. You walk in one day, drenched from the rain. I offer you a towel and a place to wait for the rain to subside. You smile gratefully, and once more, I am reminded of how I love your smile.

We chat. You are a bartender, working at a semi-prestigious bar downtown. You love mysteries and crime fiction, and of course your favorite literary character of all time is Sherlock Holmes.

(Mine is, curiously, not Arsene Lupin.)

At the end of it, when the rain has stopped and the sky is dark, you smile once more and thank me for the enlightening conversation. I ask you out for coffee, and you agree.

You never show up.

* * *

We fight with swords made of light. They are weightless, beautiful things.

Your blade is blue, the same blue as your eyes. Your eyes reflect the purity of your soul; you are blindingly good and walk your path like one deeply entrenched in the Light. You use your blade only to defend yourself and those you love.

Once, I was included in that group.

I draw my blade. It is red, the color of your blood as it stains my robes.

I cradle you gently as the light leaves your eyes. I do not cry. The fire in my soul has burned away all my tears.

Later, much later, I conquer the galaxy in a desperate attempt to find a way to bring you back, but the answer I get is always the same.

Death is the boundary of no return.

I burn, and the universe burns with me, because what is the point of a universe without you?

* * *

I work in the ER at a prominent hospital in the city.

One night, you are rolled in on a gurney.

“Poor kid got hit by a car when he was crossing the street. Multiple fractures, possible spinal cord injury, multiple lacerations, possible concussion.”

We fight for your life, but you slip away under my fingers.

* * *

I am an up-and-coming magician, and you are a famous actor. They hire me to help you learn some tricks for your next movie.

I show you the one with the birds, the multiplying balls, and a slew of other simple sleight of hands. You love each and every one of them, watching them with a sort of childish wonder on your face. We meet in coffeeshops, in bookstores, along the street, and every time I see you I teach you a new trick. You are a wonderful student, and your new movie is absolutely amazing.

You ask me to attend the premiere with you. I accept, and we arrive together to the sound of a hundred cameras clicking furiously and a hundred blinding flashes.

The newspapers talk about us for weeks. You tell me not to mind and ask me to move in with you.

One day, as I am walking home from the grocery store, one of your fans stabs me, and I bleed out on the sidewalk.

(They tell you she was hysterical. They tell you she was not in her right mind. You tell them you do not care.

You carry my ashes like a precious gem, and I am content.)

* * *

In this life, we are soldiers. We meet in the muddy trenches, with the dying groans of men echoing around us. I almost don’t recognize you, under the layers of grime that cake your skin, and I am no better. We have been in the trenches for weeks, and another bombardment is on its way.

I am out of smokes, and I ask you for an extra. You take out your last two and hand one to me.

In this great cacophony of suffering, we quietly share a smoke and swap stories for a while.

Then the bombardment comes, and we are both lost in a single instant to a fiery, deafening explosion.

* * *

In one life, you are a prominent Youtuber, and I am a fan. I send in messages and once, when I was very drunk, I snail mailed you a letter.

You read it on your channel, and I will neither confirm nor deny the fact that I squealed for two whole minutes when I saw it. This unconfirmed rumor may have something to do with how you asked me out for coffee at the end of it.

But I digress.

You are lovely, and I am a little tongue-tied, and we end up dating, then marrying, then living out our lives together.

At the end of it all, we are watching the sun set when you breathe your last.

It was a happy life.


	3. Ebb and flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every hero has an origin story, and our hero is no different.

_Once upon a time, there was a boy. He was smart and mischievous, and it was said that he could draw water out of the air and conjure up flowers._

_Everyone who saw him loved him, for he was their own, a child born of love and light. His abilities are born of magic, and he spreads it freely amongst all who ask._

_One day, this boy meets another boy, and as these things go, they fall in love. They grow older and taller, but they are the same shining souls from many years ago._

_One day, the boy’s love is sleeping by the river, when the river god comes across him and is immediately drawn to his physical beauty. The river god claims him as his own, because gods are cruel and selfish and only understand how to possess, and while he is asleep, gently draws him down to the river’s cold, dark depths._

_The boy is distraught when his love disappears into the depths. He screams and pleads, shouts and curses, but the river god is unwilling to give up his prize. Finally, he decides to lure the river god out with a trick._

_“Come, oh mighty River, and let us play a game. If you win, I will give my magic to you. If I win, I want you to return my love to me.”_

_The River nods. It likes this deal, and it is very good at playing games._

_The boy knows he must win, for his magic is something essential to his very being, and losing that magic means losing himself. But losing his love is like tearing his own heart out, and he cannot do that either._

_So he must win._

_The game is simple. The boy will run, and River will chase him. If the boy can escape River three times, then the boy wins._

_They begin. The boy runs as fast as his legs will carry him up a hill. River is amused, but not terribly challenged._

_“You think this mound of dirt can stop me?”_

_And River surges up and greedily swallows the hill._

_The boy keeps running, and eventually climbs up a tall mountain. River looks up at the mountain and swallows that as well, but the boy escapes once more._

_The boy runs as fast as he can, and he runs until he reaches a desert. He sinks his toes into the hot, dry sand and waits for River to appear._

_When River sees the sand, it balks. It knows that this sand and heat is deadly to all life, and it is hesitant to move forward._

_“This is your last chance, River! Catch me if you can.”_

_“Do not tempt me, boy!”_

_And River moves forward, and it fades away into a ghostly shimmer on the hot, hot land. The boy moves forward, eagerly searching for his love._

_But as River faded, it took with it one last thing. It took the boy’s love with it, and left behind a single, red stone._

_The boy finds the stone but not his love, and he screams his loss out for the world to hear. The stone, in response, bleeds a single, red tear._

_The tear drips onto the mourning boy, and it reworks his thread in the fabric of reality. Because he asked for his love to be returned, he is forced to remember his past lives as he lives out his future, and he is cursed to never meet his love. Such is the price of cheating Death._

_Not until River’s life-debt is paid will his love be returned to him._

_The boy has been paying this debt for a long, long time._


	4. Fragile and beautiful and hopeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Snapshots, moments, mere seconds: as fragile and beautiful and hopeless as a single butterfly, flapping on against a gathering wind." - Lauren Oliver

In some lives, we live long, happy lives together. You are the new neighbor across the street, or the cute line cook from Chili’s, or even once a stranger I mistook for my blind date. I am the agoraphobe who doesn’t leave his house, or the girl who accidentally spills her glass of water all over the table, or the used car saleswoman who is desperately working to make ends meet.

You meet me, and by some miracle, you find me cute or charming or lovely. We go out on dates, we talk, we fall in love.

You propose, or I propose, or we don’t propose but instead file paperwork for a civil union, or we have children and live together.

We live long, and we live happily, until you die.

I carry your ashes (you always ask to be cremated) to their final resting place. The urn is so light in my arms, like when you died and your body was burned something was lost to the air above.

* * *

In this life, you are a thief, and I am a detective.

I am sorry to inform you that you are not a very good thief. You steal things but never the really important ones, though I guess you do like to stay in the shadows more.

Even so, chasing you is fun. It reminds me of our first life, me running across the moonlit rooftops of Paris, you chasing after me in the darkened streets below, except you like jumping into vents and small crawlspaces and I am a little claustrophobic so instead I wait for you to emerge from your chosen exit of the evening.

Your techniques are very good, but you lack the flair, the drama needed for being a phantom thief. This is not a bad thing; it means less people are shooting at you, and less shady organizations are trying to recruit you.

I catch you, but I let you go every time. We are good friends, but that is all we are. You are too principled to stray from your duties, and I am not principled enough to follow the rules.

* * *

I was an army doctor, honorably discharged after being wounded in combat. You are the singular most infuriating man I have ever met, but also the most brilliant. You are the world’s only consulting detective, and I am just a small, mousy doctor with a limp.

When we first meet, you shake my hand and ask me if I served in Afghanistan or Iraq.

You are a great man, and one day, I want to shape you into a good one.

In this life, you meet a woman who is just as devastatingly brilliant as you, and though you profess to not experience love, I can tell that you are in love with her. You also meet a man, a man I destroyed once because he destroyed you. I do not tell you that though. Life is complicated enough without bringing the past into things.

In this life, I meet a woman. She looks just as small and mousy as I do, but she walks with a well-concealed grace and speaks with hidden steel. What part of my heart I have not given to you, I gave to her, because in this life you cannot love me like I love you.

We live short lives in this one, because both of us love danger too much and court Death too closely.

You are shot (like in the first time), and I burn myself up to destroy the man who destroyed you once again.

* * *

I first meet you in the ashes of our ruined city, after the kaiju have come and gone. You have just lost everyone you know and love, and you scream your grief for the empty air to hear.

We quickly become fast friends amongst our cadet group, and when it comes time for choosing a partner, we are one of the first to pass. We have our own Jaeger, a lithe, mechanical beast which we both love. I hear you in my head even when we aren’t drifting together, and at night we lie in one bunk and wrap our arms around each other to stave off the nightmares.

We become a famous team, you and I; we have the highest number of recorded kaiju kills in the history of the war, and we can hear each other from across the city within our own minds.

We never live long, in these war-torn lives. You are ripped away from me, or I answer the call of the darkness within me, or we both die in a blinding flash, two candles blown out by the wind.

It is the same in this timeline. We are overconfident and brash and young, and I scream as you are stabbed clean through by a dripping, dirty claw.

You are pronounced dead on arrival when I manage to move us back to the base. I quit piloting and spend long hours at the top of the ‘dome (which you loved, because it was open and free), staring down into the sparkling depths of the water below.

A year passes before I know it, and one day I wake up with your voice inside my head and a desperate need for oxygen, and I jump.

* * *

You are a famous lawyer, known for your charisma and negotiation skills. You are given the hardest cases, which you then proceed to tear apart until you are satisfied with the results you get. I buy the newspapers when they splash your face in color across the front, bold headlines proclaiming your brilliance for the world to see.

The first and only time I see you in person is through the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. You are attending a gala, hosted at some fancy hotel. I am on the next building over, four stories up.

I am a freelance assassin, and I do not renege on my contracts.

But I cannot fire on you. Not after I killed you once, not after I felt you slipping away under my hands.

The police find my head floating in the river. They do not find my body. But it’s alright, because I do not matter, not in the grand scheme of things. You live to a ripe old age and die peacefully in a sunlit backyard with your children and grandchildren around you, and that is all that matters.

* * *

Sometimes fate plays ironic tricks on us. You are the princess of the kingdom; I am your body double. We look very much alike, according to everyone else. I think you and I are composed of a world of differences, and that is what is beautiful.

One day, you manage to anger an evil witch, who curses you to sleep forever until your love wakes you up. The king is angry, the queen is distraught, and the kingdom mourns for their sleeping princess.

I sneak into your room one night, and you wake the next morning.

But you are a princess, and I am only your body double. Sometimes I wish you were a mere peasant girl like me, or that I was a prince, worthy to be by your side. When you naively reveal the truth, I am executed for loving you.

The last thing I see in this time, like in many other times, are your blue, blue eyes.


	5. Theme and variations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All these lives, they're just variations of a common theme.

In this life, you are a detective and I am a thief. We end up in this theme a lot – you work on the right side of the law, on the side of the good, for justice, and I turn to the dark because what I am looking for cannot be found in light.

But in this life, like our first life, like so many of the ones that have come after, you do what you love as a detective, and I am a famous phantom thief. They call you the “Heisei Holmes”, the savior of the police force, the Detective of the East. You are born into a happy family, and grow up a brilliant but normal child.

They call me Kaitou KID (Kaitou 1412 is such a boring name, wouldn’t you agree?). I search for a jewel, a red gem. They call it Pandora in this time, but it was once all that was left of my love. I search for it, because the only way we can be free from this never-ending series of lives is if I destroy it. I am tired of remembering.

We meet once when we are young, but you are young and unburdened, and there is always more time for us.

We meet once more when I steal the clocktower. You are a fun opponent, just as fun as you were all those years and lifetimes ago when we chased each other across the Parisian rooftops. I catch a glimpse of you in a helicopter, and I give you a jaunty wink before I leave on my glider.

When we meet next, you are somehow six again, blindingly in love with your Ran, and I am exceedingly jealous. I knock her out and masquerade as her, and I love what little time we have together. At the end of the evening, you catch me, and once more, I leave you a little parting gift before disappearing into the night.

You start coming to my heists, and I am absolutely thrilled. It has been a long time since I have had someone to impress with my tricks, and each one I make up is more elaborate than the last. My fans love it, but I only have eyes for you and your reactions.

At the end of each heist, we meet on the rooftop. The gem is never Pandora, and I always end up returning it to you before leaving.

In my spare time, I often wonder why you shrunk, how you’re doing now, what you’re up to next. You reappear sometimes in your older form, but never at my heists; I am not stupid, I can tell when someone is being hunted.

You appear less and less in your original form as the years pass, and Ran moves on. She will never forget you, but she cannot stand the constant absences, the string of lies that you must feed her to keep her safe.

One day, you stop me and tell me the story of a boy who fights an organization. I listen, because there is no one else in your life who will, and I give you advice. The first piece of advice I give you is to let me into it, and I tell you my own, impossible story.

You listen, and you believe.

Sometimes I wonder why I did not do this earlier. You are a cunning strategist, I am a great improviser, and together, the organization stands no chance against us.

And at the end of it all, there is a cure, a red gem, and you.

* * *

It is an ordinary moment in a typical day in Beika Town. People walk around outside, cars speed on by, buses filled with passengers roar past pedestrians on the sidewalk. Somewhere, a woman screams, because another murder has been committed.

But here, in your house in District 2, Block 21, we sit at the table and stare at the red gem that sits gently on it.

“Ready?” I ask.

“Ready,” you say.

I take one last look into your blue eyes, and from somewhere courage bubbles up to the surface. I lean forward and kiss you gently.

Then I smash the hammer down on the gem.


	6. In the end

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the end, it is you and me.

The house stands quietly as it has for many years. There are multiple pairs of men’s shoes at the entrance, some of them kicked haphazardly about and other lined up neatly. A grand piano sits in the living room, covered in dust. Pictures line the hallways; in some, a young boy smiles up at the camera, or he is hugging his parents, or he is performing in some sort of school event. In others, a young girl is holding the young boy in a chokehold, or she’s laughing at his expression.

The dining room table is as dust-covered as the piano is. There is a light chip in the dark wood of the table, almost exactly in the center, as if something hit the table with blunt force. There are four chairs, two of which are pulled out, as if their occupants had been speaking mere moments before. The kitchen is dark and a look into the fridge reveals nothing but half-spoiled leftovers and frozen ingredients.

There are red shards on the floor of some unknown gem. A ruby, maybe, judging by the coloration.

Voices at the door. Someone is here. A jangle, probably of keys. Laughter.

“Rude, Shinichi!” someone says.

Two people step inside. One of them kicks off their shoes and leaves them there.

“Hey, Kaito, put your shoes away.”

The man rolls his eyes at his companion. “Yes, mother.”

“Oh hush, you.”

They move into the dining room, where the shards lie.

“Oh, did we forget to clean that up?”

The first man, the one who told the other to put his shoes away, glances up at his companion in an unspoken question.

The man with curly hair looks at the shards with his violet eyes.

“Feel free to toss them.”

“Are you sure? Even bad memories are worth keeping, after all.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t think we’ll need it anymore.”

* * *

In the end, it is you and me. Detective and thief. Lupin and Holmes.

Kuroba Kaito and Kudou Shinichi.

And together, we move forward.

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all who read this work, and I hope you had as much fun (cough angst? heh) as I did writing it :)
> 
> (i feel like i just birthed a monstrous child from my brain, like athena from zeus' head, except now i have a raging headache because of this child...)


End file.
